Barwick Lodge, including entrance gate piers and attached walls, Parlington Estate, Parlington, Leeds

Summary

Lodge to the Parlington Estate, early C19, and the associated north estate entrance with gate piers and attached walls

Description

Lodge to the Parlington Estate, early C19, and associated north estate entrance with gate piers and attached walls

MATERIALS: coursed limestone ashlar with some cement render, slate roof coverings.

PLAN: the lodge has a hexagonal plan (NB the OS mapping for the lodge is inaccurate and does not depict the building's north-east angle) with longer elevations on the east and west sides and a small projection on the north side. A late-1960s extension is attached to the east side, which is not of special interest and is excluded from the listing.

EXTERIOR: the original part of the building incorporates a plinth, which is taller on the east side due to a change in ground level, and has a shallow roof with hips to the angles, a central ridge stack of handmade buff brick, and a deep overhanging eaves. The three-bay front elevation faces west towards visitors entering the estate through the adjacent north entrance and has a central doorway flanked by sash windows, all with flat-arched heads and painted-stone sills to the windows. The windows have four-over-four unhorned sashes; those to the left, and also an overlight above the door, additionally have glazing bars set diagonally forming star shapes (replicated on windows to the building's north-east and south-east angles). The panelled entrance door also has battens set diagonally. Blind windows exist to the north, north-west, south, and south-west angles, and a small later inserted window is set high up the east wall. Modern cement render has been added to the stonework below the windows to the south-west corner. On the north side of the building is a small original flat-roofed projection of coursed limestone with a partly-glazed panelled door and a plank and batten door on the east side (probably a privy and coal store or ashes place originally). Attached to the east side is a late-1960s single-storey, flat-roofed extension set on slightly lower ground with cement render walls scored to imitate stonework and a rendered chimneystack. The extension, which is believed to have replaced an original smaller projection on this side, is not of special interest and is therefore excluded from the listing.

INTERIOR: internally the original lodge is split in half to form two rooms with back-to-back chimneybreasts; a kitchen to the north side and a lounge to the south side, with a small vestibule inside the main entrance. A doorway on the north side of the vestibule leads in to the kitchen (a corresponding doorway leading in to the lounge possibly also originally existed on the south side of the entrance vestibule), which has modern units, a late-C20 brick fireplace (a cast-iron range was removed in the late C20), and doorways leading through to the lounge and the extension. The lounge also has a late-C20 fireplace and a hatch providing access to the roofspace. Six-panel doors survive. Steps lead down from the kitchen into the extension, which is excluded from the listing.

NORTH ESTATE ENTRANCE: immediately to the north-west of Barwick Lodge is the north entrance to the Parlington Estate, which consists of square gate piers with shallow-domed caps constructed of limestone with flanking curving wing walls of coursed limestone with rounded copings; that to the west projects out directly from the front face of the gate pier. The wall heading east decreases in height beyond the wing wall, with a ramped section connecting the two, and continues for approximately 100m, whilst the wall heading west continues for approximately 20m.

History

The history of the Parlington Estate is intertwined with that of the Gascoignes, a family of Catholic landed gentry based in Yorkshire. Land at Parlington, including the medieval village of Parlington and probably also a manorial complex, was bought by John Gascoigne (1520-1602) from Thomas Lord Wentworth in March 1545. The remains of the village are believed to have been removed in the C18 when the landscape was gentrified and mineral extraction was also exploited. Parlington became the seat of the Gascoignes in the early 1720s when they moved from nearby Barnbow Hall (now demolished).

Parlington Hall (now - 2018 - largely demolished) is believed to have been remodelled in the 1730s for Sir Edward Gascoigne (1697-1750), and again in around 1800 for his son Sir Thomas. Sir Edward's accounts reveal that a deer park was created in the late 1730s, and a deer herd remained at the estate up until the Second World War. Also in the 1730s, stone from the estate quarries was used to build the Assembly Rooms in York and Sir Edward provided stone for restoration work at York Minster gratis.

Sir Thomas Gascoigne (1745-1810), who was born and raised in Cambrai, northern France and was the youngest son of Sir Edward and Mary Gascoigne, inherited the Parlington Estate in 1762 after his elder brother's sudden death. He settled in England in 1765, interspersing his residence with two Grand Tours where he mixed in court society, including with Marie Antoinette and Charles III, King of Spain. In 1780 Gascoigne abjured his Catholic faith to become an Anglican and a Member of Parliament, becoming a close ally of the Marquis of Rockingham. However, in 1784 Sir Thomas married Lady Mary Turner, a widow with two young children, and he resigned from politics to concentrate on his family and improving the Parlington Estate, although he returned to politics several years later following Mary's early death from childbirth complications. Sir Thomas was an advocate of agricultural reform like his father Sir Edward, and a coal mine and quarry owner interested in developing technologies and innovation. He also had a keen interest in horse racing and breeding, developing a stud at Parlington. Gascoigne was elected Honorary Member of the Board of Agriculture in 1796 and his expertise and opinions on agricultural reform were sought by the board and his contemporaries.

Sir Thomas Gascoigne died in 1810 shortly after his only son and heir, Thomas Charles (1786-1809) had died in a hunting accident. The estate subsequently passed to his step-daughter Mary (c1783-1819) who had married Captain Richard Oliver (1762-1842); her husband taking the name Gascoigne as stipulated by Sir Thomas' will. Richard Oliver Gascoigne maintained the estate's agricultural and horse racing interests developed by Sir Thomas at Parlington, and built new stables in 1813 to the designs of Watson and Pritchett of York (now demolished). He also further developed mineral assets on the estate, constructing the Dark Arch in 1813 on the coal wagonway of Parlington Lane that cut through the estate just to the south of the hall.

Richard Oliver's two sons Thomas and Richard pre-deceased him and thus upon his death his two daughters Mary Isabella (1810-1891) and Elizabeth (1812-1893) inherited. Mary Isabella and her husband lived at Parlington, and Elizabeth and her husband lived at the family's other estate, Castle Oliver in County Limerick, Ireland. After the death of his parents Parlington passed to Isabella's son Colonel Frederick Richard Thomas Trench-Gascoigne in 1905. Frederick, who had already inherited nearby Lotherton Hall from his aunt Elizabeth and had made that his family residence, focused on a military career, leaving the running of the Parlington estate to employees. Frederick removed many of the contents from the hall, along with a number of architectural features, including the hall's porte cochere, which became a garden feature at Lotherton. Parlington Hall was subsequently abandoned and in 1919 the estate's mines were sold.

The majority of the hall was demolished in 1952, leaving only part of the service wing surviving, which is now a private house. The entire estate was sold in the 1960s and is now owned by an institutional property investment fund.

Barwick Lodge was constructed at some point between 1817 and 1849, most probably in the earlier decades for Richard Oliver Gascoigne. It was later extended in the late 1960s. The interior was refurbished in 1983 and the kitchen units replaced in the early C21.

Reasons for Listing

Barwick Lodge, including entrance gate piers and attached walls, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* it is a good example of an early-C19 estate building with a classical design that maintains stylistic continuity with other late-C18 and early-C19 listed buildings on the estate;
* the exterior survives relatively unaltered and the interior retains its original two-room plan and six-panel doors.

Historic interest:

* it contributes to the understanding of the functioning of the Parlington Estate in the C19 and helps interpret the surviving elements of the estate.

Group value:

* it has strong group value with the other listed buildings and structures on the Parlington Estate and the Grade II-registered landscape.

External Links

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